Raising Connor

She looked up into his face, seeing for the first time how haggard he looked.

Dizzying, disjointed thoughts spun in her brain. Call her new boss, ask for an extension on her start date; call the new landlord to plead for a refund of her deposit. Find Beth and Kent’s will and their checkbook; call Deidre to tell her about Beth. How would she tell Connor?

Never in her wildest dreams could Brooke have foreseen herself leaning into Hunter, sobbing.

CHAPTER THREE

GROWING UP THE youngest of four boys, Hunter hadn’t had much experience with touchy-feely stuff, but when Brooke melted against him, his arms automatically held her.

Unexpected? To be sure. Uncomfortable? Most definitely. Because the DVD in his inside jacket pocket was the only reason he’d come here today. When her brother-in-law handed it to him the week before their islands vacation, he’d sworn Hunter to secrecy. No one could know about his living-color will, not even Beth.

Listening to Kent’s vindictive portrayal of Brooke almost made him sorry he’d agreed to carry out its terms...and made him feel like a voyeur. “A woman like that,” Kent had said, “should not be allowed to raise my kid just because she’s connected by blood.”

Kent had left nothing to chance. In the note tucked into the DVD case, he had written:

In the event that something should happen to Beth and me on our trip, you, Hunter Stone, are to deliver one copy of this disc to a family court lawyer of your choice and another to my sister-in-law. You are then to immediately and permanently remove my son from her care.

Frankly, Hunter didn’t understand that level of hostility, because it seemed to him that Brooke was crazy about Connor, and the feeling was mutual. If she was guilty of anything, it was stubbornness and grudge-holding...against him.

So no, he didn’t understand Kent’s attitude, but after fifteen years of dodging Brooke at every O’Toole function, it would probably feel good to have the upper hand for a change.

At least, that was what he’d thought until he saw her on the porch, damp-eyed and rumpled, and couldn’t bring himself to deliver it. Finding out that her sister was dead, seeing the video, losing Connor all in the same morning? Only a heartless heel would do that to her.

So he’d left the DVD in his jacket pocket, told himself there would be plenty of time after the funeral to hand it over. Plenty of time to get a handle on his own grief at losing the friends who, for eight of the past fifteen years, had been more like family than neighbors. Time to find ways to support Brooke any way he could, because it was what Beth would have wanted.

He searched his mind for a word, a phrase that might comfort her, that wouldn’t sound phony or trite. Ironic, he thought, that his contractor’s toolbox was full of gadgets and gizmos, yet he didn’t know how to fix the brokenness in Brooke.

She spared him by stepping back. Way back.

“Sorry for soaking your shirt,” she said, plucking a napkin from the basket on the table.

Those eyes, sad and scared, looked so much like her mother’s that he could scarcely breathe.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” he said, meaning it.

“Next time you come over, bring it with you—”

Even her hair, illuminated by the fluorescent ceiling fixture, reminded him of that night.

“—so I can wash and iron it. It’s the least I can do after blubbering all over it.”

Brooke blew her nose, hard, then tossed the napkin into the trash can and got busy cleaning up the floor. “I’ll bet imitating Canada geese wasn’t on Beth’s ‘My Sister Isn’t All Bad’ list.”

No, but plenty of other things were. For starters, Beth had assured him that despite the way Brooke had always treated him, she was a good and loving person; her bitterness, Beth insisted, was proof that her sister’s loyalty ran deep. “Give it time,” she’d said. “Brooke will come around, just like I did.”

He hadn’t believed it then. He didn’t believe it now. Still, he got onto his knees to help her sop up the melting ice cubes.

When they finished, Brooke stood at the sink and lathered her hands. “I have to email my electronic signature to Florida before Connor wakes up.”

A hint that he should leave? He could hardly blame her for sounding less than enthusiastic about spending time in his company. Besides, he’d been in her shoes when his dad died a year ago and knew that after emailing her signature to the deputy, she’d have her hands full making appointments and searching Beth’s office for documentation to bring to the meetings.

The DVD was out of sight, but hardly out of mind. It didn’t seem fair that with it, he had a virtual arsenal of ammunition to shoot down her attempts to keep Connor, yet she had to make all the final arrangements.

“Guess I ought to go. Call me if you need any—”

He didn’t understand the anger in her eyes. Especially since, not five minutes ago, she’d soaked his shirt with tears.

If she thought he’d gotten off easy after her mother’s death in the convenience store shootings, she was wrong: he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept more than two hours at a stretch or a night when his dreams weren’t filled with the sounds and images of the shooting. Beth had been wrong, too: Brooke would punish him with her dying breath.

As she’d stood crying in his arms, a weird thought had crossed his mind: Give her the disc. Don’t fight her for Connor. Tell her you’ll help her raise him...to prove how rotten you feel about that night. But in this moment of lucidity, he realized how wrong that would be, because Connor deserved better from life than to spend it under the thumb of a woman so consumed with hatred and bitterness.

He took a few steps closer. “You might not believe this, but I don’t blame you for hating me. I hate me for what happened that night,” he said, meaning every word. “But, Brooke, can’t you set it aside, even at a time like this?”

He prepared himself for a scathing retort.

“A time like this,” she grumbled, putting her back to him. “Connor hates eggs,” she said, grabbing oatmeal from the cabinet. “He’ll be up soon, so I need to get his breakfast ready.”

He stood, gap-jawed, wondering what any of that had to do with what he’d just said.

“I’m not the least bit hungry,” she continued, “but I’ll eat...to stay sharp. For Connor.”

She riveted him with an unblinking stare, and he felt like a bug, caught in a spider’s web. He’d been a fool to come over here; should’ve taken the disk to a lawyer, like Kent told him to, and let the chips fall where they may.

“Eat. Don’t eat,” he said. “It’s none of my business.” And he meant that, too.

“Your coffee’s getting cold. Have a seat, will you?” she said. “Because I need to get something off my chest, and I prefer to do it eye to eye, without you towering over me like Goliath.”

Oh. Great. Hunter exhaled a ragged sigh. He had a good idea that what she needed to get off her chest was about her mother and his incompetence, and he’d take it on the chin. After the funeral, he’d take off the gloves and do everything in his power to get Connor as far from her spiteful influence as possible. Unlike her sister, Brooke apparently had no understanding of forgiveness and generosity.

He sat, then looked up at her and met her steady gaze blink for blink. “Okay. I’m sitting,” he said. “Hit me.”

She leveled him with a look that made him think she might just do it.

“I thought you said you wanted to be eye to eye?”

For the second time in as many seconds, it seemed as if she might clean his clock. Then she shook her head, sat across from him and folded her hands on the table. Eyes blazing, she opened her mouth to speak...

...and the phone rang, startling her so badly that she nearly overturned her coffee mug. Too early for a social call, he thought as she got up to answer it.

“Yes, this is Brooke O’Toole....” Shading her eyes with one hand, she walked toward the sink. “So that’s it, then. You’re absolutely sure.”

He heard the catch in her voice and resisted the urge to go into the living room and pick up the extension to find out what had caused it.

After she hung up, Brooke continued facing the wall, cupping her elbows, shaking her head. Finally, she returned to the table.

“I asked for fingerprint identification,” she explained, though he hadn’t asked who had called or why. “More proof it really was them. Since Beth is a teacher, I knew hers would be on record. But it seems Kent had a record of his own.” She stared at some unknown spot on the wall behind him. Then, rubbing her eyes, she added, “The deputy thought it might be a good idea to speak with a lawyer in case Kent’s former burglary victims have a mind to sue the estate for restitution.” She held her head in her hands. “Estate. What a joke. I haven’t even had a chance to look for a will, if there is a will.”

His heart pounded out an extra beat as he thought of the disc.

“I wouldn’t worry,” he said. “That trouble Kent got into...it happened a long, long time ago, and he paid for it with months in juvie and years in the Marines. I didn’t know him back then, but I’d bet my entire business that time served is what turned him around. The military has a way of turning boys into men.”

She aimed a guarded look his way. “And you know this because...?”

“Because fifteen years ago I enlisted in the army.”

He watched as she did the math, realized what he’d just admitted.

“And Kent was in the Marines.” She harrumphed. “Well, that explains a lot.”

“Such as...”

“Such as why Kent couldn’t tolerate a mess of any kind and went ballistic when the news reported stories about kids who broke the law.” She frowned. “And why he was so tough on me when my stupid choices came to roost at his door. I was never his favorite person.”

That, Hunter already knew. But he’d only heard things from Kent’s point of view. “Why?”

“Because I tried to talk Beth out of marrying him. And more than once, after he got drunk and threatened her, tried to talk her into leaving him. That’s why he looked for ways to discredit me in Beth’s eyes.”

Admittedly, life had dealt Brooke a pretty bad hand; hopefully, whatever she was about to tell him wouldn’t force him to lay down the card that would make her fold, here and now.

She ran a finger around the rim of her mug. “Wish I’d known he had such a rough childhood.”

“Why? It wasn’t any harder than yours and Beth’s. Different kind of hard, but no harder.”

Focusing on the spot behind him again, she winced.

Her actions and attitude told him she hadn’t yet fully absorbed the reality of her loss. He’d felt the same way after his dad died. Helping his mom make the grim plans and cope with financial concerns in addition to the shock of losing her mate had allowed Hunter to sideline his grief. If he hadn’t stepped up, any one of his brothers would have. But Deidre and Connor...they were the extent of Brooke’s family now. She couldn’t lean on a seventy-five-year-old or a toddler. And his presence wasn’t making things easier for her.

Hunter turned toward the door but her quiet words stopped him.

“Guess it’s true what they say.”

Two feet of tabletop—and fifteen years’ worth of bitter memories—separated them. He had to remind himself that Brooke wasn’t some untested teenager but a full-grown woman who’d survived disappointments and losses. She didn’t need him to protect her. So how did he explain his odd desire to do just that?

“‘Be careful what you ask for.’”

“What did you ask for?”

“Proof.”

Remembering the whole fingerprints explanation, Hunter nodded.

“Well, I got it, and then some, didn’t I?”

She seemed on the verge of tears. He could walk around to her side of the table, take her in his arms, and this time, he could take a little comfort while giving it.

It was a stupid, crazy, dangerous thought, and he squelched it by reminding himself how much she loathed him...and why. Listening to his heart instead of his head had led to his downfall more times than he cared to admit. This time, it could cost him in ways he couldn’t predict. Worse, it could cost Connor.

As if on cue, the baby’s voice crackled through the monitor.

Brooke was on her feet in an instant.

“Oh no. He’s up early....” Halfway to the hall, she stopped, leaned on the doorjamb and hid behind her hands.

And I have no idea what to tell him, he finished for her.

If Connor were already in his care, how and when would he deliver the news? It didn’t seem fair to let Brooke deal with it alone considering that in a few days, a week, maybe, he’d pull the rug out from under her.

“What would you say to seeing an expert,” he began, “before we break the news to Connor?”

When she didn’t disagree, he added, “Just so we’ll know the right way and the right time to tell the poor kid that...about...you know.”

She was silent, which made him wonder if she was gearing up to blast him for saying we.

“Yeah,” she said, “that’s not a bad idea.”

Relief sluiced over him. Why couldn’t she be this calm and rational all of the time?

Hunter decided he wouldn’t follow her to Connor’s room; soon enough he’d be with the boy pretty much 24/7.

She met his eyes, a vacant, disconnected stare that, for a blink in time, took him back to the convenience store. Again. Right now he’d give anything to be as far away from her as he could get. This up-close-and-personal stuff was downright unnerving.

She left the room without a word, heightening his uncertainty.

If he knew what was good for him, he’d step up his boxing skills...because something told him that once she saw that DVD, he was in for the fight of his life.

CHAPTER FOUR

DEIDRE FROWNED. “First chance I get, I’m sending Felix over here to do something about this lawn before your neighbors start complaining.” She shook her head. “That handyman of mine is an artist with hedge shears. I’ll bet he can do something with that boxwood hedge. It was Kent’s pride and joy. If he saw the mess it’s in, he’d roll over in his grave.” She clucked her tongue. “If he had one.”

There were so many things wrong with her grandmother’s statement that Brooke didn’t know where to begin. First, this wasn’t her neighborhood. Second, she’d tried starting the lawn mower during one of Connor’s afternoon naps, but her arms had been too short for the pull cord. And that crack about Kent’s grave! Brooke would blame it on advancing age...if Deidre hadn’t always been so proud of her bluntness. Like during last year’s Christmas service when Deidre spotted a sorority sister sitting with her new beau: “Do you think those two are having sex?” When heads turned to see who’d made the loud crude comment, Brooke said, “Gram! We’re in church!” And Deidre, being Deidre, blurted, “Oh, fiddlefarts. God invented sex!”

Now Deidre pointed at the ankle-deep grass beneath her Mary Jane–style sneakers. “You know what it means when dandelions bloom in March, don’t you?”

What Brooke knew about dandelions could be summed up with a word: weed.

“This happened a few years ago. We had a terrible, fierce spring. Thunderstorms, derechos, tornadoes—”

Just what Connor needs, Brooke thought, weather-related storms in his life, too.

“—and a long humid summer that broke every weather record in the book.” She turned toward Brooke. “Remember?”

No, she didn’t, because she’d spent the past five years in Richmond, where every summer seemed endlessly sticky. But admitting that would only inspire another “if you had stayed home, where you belong...” speech. Her grandmother meant well and probably had no idea how upsetting it was to hear the list of hardships Brooke’s move south had caused: she hadn’t been there when one of Deidre’s tenants left the garage apartment in shambles, when another forgot to close a window before a long business trip, and hornets built a basketball-size nest in the closet. She wasn’t there to see Deidre’s directorial debut in the little-theater production of Our Town and had never gone with her to place flowers on Percy’s grave. Once, out of frustration, Brooke had suggested that Beth would probably love helping out. “Beth,” Deidre had said, “has a family to take care of.” Translation: Brooke had no responsibilities.

Well, she had her share of them now.

“Yeddow,” Connor said, pointing at a dandelion. He squatted and picked the flower, then carried it to Brooke. “Yeddow?”

It was the closest he’d come to smiling in two days, and she felt like celebrating. She bent down to kiss his forehead. “Yes, yellow. And pretty, too!”

“Pitty,” he echoed, toddling into the backyard.

His pronunciation of the word seemed beyond ironic, because losing his mommy and daddy at the same time was a pity.

He tripped on a clump of weeds and landed on his diapered rump. Ordinarily, he’d giggle, get right back to his feet and continue on as if nothing had stopped him. Not today. He cried for nearly ten minutes straight, quieting only after Brooke tossed aside the lid to the sandbox so he could play.

“Poor li’l guy,” Deidre said.

“He senses something is wrong,” Brooke agreed. “He just doesn’t know what. It’s as though he knows somehow that Beth and Kent should have come home before yesterday.”

“You need to tell him. And soon.”

“Tell him what, Gram? That his mom and dad are gone? He’s only one and a half. Kids his age have no concept of death.” She remembered Hunter’s suggestion about talking with an expert who could help them explain things in terms Connor would comprehend. The idea was sounding better and better.

Deidre stared at Connor furiously banging his blue plastic shovel on a red fire truck. “I suppose you’re right.”

Once the funeral was behind them, she’d call Connor’s pediatrician. Surely he could recommend a good child psychologist. For now, she’d just have to exercise patience as Connor expressed his confusion in the only way he could: tantrums.

“You look tired,” Deidre said.

No surprise there. She hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since before the deputy’s phone call. Connor hadn’t slept well since that night, either. If only she could blame a cold or the flu for his grumpy behavior.

“You’re pushing yourself too hard. You need healthy food and a couple good nights’ sleep.”

“Once Beth and Kent are home and...” It might have been easier to say “once they’re buried” if she knew that was their preference. Brooke had rifled through every drawer and cubby in the house searching for their will. With nothing but good intentions and guesses to go on, burial had won out over cremation. “Things will be over soon, and then I’ll sleep.”

“Soon, my foot. You’re his mother now, like it or not, so stop feeling sorry for yourself and start acting like one. You’ll have to learn to organize your time better so that you don’t wear yourself out, because if you keep up at this pace, you’ll topple like a tree in the woods.”

The “If a tree falls, would anyone hear it?” adage came to mind, and for a moment, Brooke thought back to her critical-thinking class: if philosophers, poets and scientists like George Berkeley, William Fossett and George Ransom Twiss hadn’t been able to solve the riddle, surely she never could. But...like it or not? Sorry for herself? Brooke hated the tragedy that put them all in this position, and she loved Connor more than life itself. What had she said or done to make her grandmother think she wasn’t up to the job?

Deidre took her hand and led her to the sandbox. “Sit down before you fall down. I’m pretty spry for an old gal, but I’m not strong enough to pick you up.”

Fourteen years ago Gram and Gramps opened their home to her and Beth after their father’s death. It couldn’t have been easy having his children underfoot, reminding them that they’d lost him forever, especially under such tragic circumstances, but they’d done it. Respect and gratitude kept Brooke from snapping back.

Deidre picked up a tiny blue shovel. “What time is your appointment with the bank manager?”

“Two o’clock. And at four I meet with the funeral director.”

Sprinkling sand into a matching bucket, she said, “I’m glad you’re not bringing this munchkin with you....”

“No one could expect him to sit still and keep quiet, least of all men in suits talking about balance transfers or coffins.” Brooke scooped up a handful of sand, watched it slowly rain from her fingers. “Hunter volunteered to stay with him while—”

“Hunter?” Deidre leaned closer. “Hunter Stone?”

That had pretty much been her reaction, too, when she’d said yes to his offer.

“I didn’t know you two were even on speaking terms.”

Memories of the way she’d fallen into his arms like a Victorian damsel in distress made her grimace, but Brooke put it out of her mind. “He stopped by the other morning. I’m not sure why. To offer his condolences?” She shrugged again. “We got to talking. One thing led to another. And when he offered to help with Connor, I decided to let him.”

Smiling, Deidre raised an eyebrow.

Good grief, Brooke thought. She loved her grandmother to pieces, but her notion that having a man in your life could right every wrong, well, that wasn’t so easy to love.

Connor sighed and tossed his truck aside. “Look at those big sad eyes,” Deidre said. “Why, it really is as if he knows. Did you tell him his uncle Hunter is staying with him? That might put a smile on his face.”

At the mention of Hunter’s name, Connor crawled over to Deidre. “Huntah?” And when she didn’t answer fast enough to suit him, he leaned into Brooke’s lap. “Huntah?”

“Yes, sweetie, he’ll be here soon.”

It had never sat well with her that Beth allowed Hunter to get close to her, and then to the baby. But as Beth had once pointed out, “Even you can see that they’re crazy about one another. If it makes Connor happy...”

Being around him had made Beth happy, too.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Deidre observed.

“I was just thinking. Guess Hunter finally figured out how to stay awake on assignment. Otherwise Beth and Kent wouldn’t have let him spend so much time with Connor.”

Deidre aimed a bony forefinger. “Shakespeare wrote that sarcasm proves a lack of wit, you know. I’m paraphrasing, but you get my drift.”

Would Deidre be less sarcastic, Brooke wondered, if she hadn’t memorized all those savvy lines during her years on the Broadway stage?

“I used to call them the Three Musketeers,” Deidre continued, “because they were like siblings...until Beth came to her senses and married Kent.”

The not-so-veiled hint wasn’t lost on Brooke.

“Frown all you like. It’s the truth and you know it.”

It seemed her grandmother was determined to pick a fight. She blamed it on the fact that, just as Brooke had lost a sister, Deidre had lost a granddaughter...one she’d raised as her own child.

“These past years haven’t been easy on Hunter, either, you know.”

“They shouldn’t have been easy!” And Deidre of all people should know why.

“Have you ever considered all that Beth gained when she forgave him?”

Brooke huffed. “A babysitter who lives just two doors down?”

“Tsk. Listen to yourself.”

“I almost forgot. She got a babysitter who minds Connor for free. And someone who knows how to hammer nails into plaster walls without cracking them, fix leaky faucets, hang storm doors. Oh. And wait. Beth also gained a confidant. A genuine friend.”

“You sound as though you think those are bad things.”

“They are...if you have to trade them for self-respect.”

Deidre’s eyes widened. “Is that what you think? That by letting go of the anger and bitterness, Beth and I handed over our dignity?”

Yes, that’s exactly what Brooke thought. And it should come as no surprise to her grandmother, because they’d had this conversation no fewer than a dozen times over the years.

“If you knew the whole story, you wouldn’t feel that way.”